


Jaw-vengers Assemble!

by Jade_Dragoness



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Community: au_bingo, Crack, Gen, Humor, No Spoilers, Sharks, not real animal behavior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:43:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/378986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jade_Dragoness/pseuds/Jade_Dragoness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The reef known as North Yellow Coral --one of the biggest reefs in the world-- was the home base of the extraordinary sea creatures known as the Jaw-vengers, protectors of the oceans.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jaw-vengers Assemble!

**Author's Note:**

> I have no excuses for this. Other than blaming a certain site for having Shark Week seasons available to watch and inflict plot bunnies on innocent people.
> 
> Written for the AU_Bingo card prompt #22 - Animals.

“Jaw-vengers Assemble!”

Tony groaned as Steve’s electronic call rippled through the water, hitting the sensitive electro-sensors in his snout and jaws. He swam another lazy circle around the two human divers in their metal cage. One held out a large piece of tuna on a string for him.

“Sorry, caged-food,” he said sadly. “Play time‘s over. Work calls.” He bit playfully at the front of the cage, tasting unappetizing metal but amusedly making the humans’ heartbeats speed up. He preened at the bright flashes of light which came from one of the humans. He turned to swim away and their hands and flipper feet made quick rapid prey splashes which would normally drawn him back for another teasing glance of teeth but… Steve called. 

Tony turned tail and swam off until the last bit of him the humans saw were the distinct dappled pattern on his back. The pattern of a tiger shark.  
*-*-*-*

Tony was halfway back to North Yellow Coral --N.Y.C. for short-- which was the second biggest coral reef in the oceans when he came alongside Natasha. He was always careful in approaching her. Natasha maybe a helluva lot smaller than him as a whiptail stingray--even if she was large for her species-- but she had a wicked tail with stingers which she had no hesitation in using if she felt like taking a bite out of his tail, metaphorically speaking, although literally speaking too he suspected.

“Do you want a ride pretty lady?” Tony asked as he leered a little. He dove so that he came up below her while also gentling the power in his tail sweeps so he wouldn’t outpace her. 

“That would be fine,” Natasha said tiredly. She settled neatly on his back, right behind his dorsal fin, avoiding the tracking tag some stupid human had stuck in him a while ago. He‘d taken his own bite out of the human in revenge. That’s how he learned that humans tasted disgusting.

The fluttering of her large flattened fins stilled letting Tony know she was ready to have him take over the swim. His pilot fish JARVIS greeted her politely before moving back up to his usual place right above his head.

“Are you just coming back from a mission?” Tony asked, slowly speeding up once he was sure he wouldn’t leave her behind.

“Yes.”

“Can you talk about it?” he asked cautiously, because that was a genuine concern. Natasha’s ability to slip into freshwater and go anywhere in the world’s waters regardless of temperature made her one of the best infiltration agents he’d ever seen. It also meant she got sent on some incredible sensitive missions and more than half the time the rest of the Jaw-vengers didn’t get to get the details.

“You‘ll hear about it later,” she said. 

Tony held his peace and swam on.  
*-*-*-*

Tony dropped off Natasha next to Clint, a bull shark who was her usual partner on missions because of his ability to join her in fresh water. 

Tony swam over to Steve and flicked his tail in a question. “Well, great captain, why you‘d call us to meet up?”

The great white shark eyed him to check if he was teasing which Tony was; just because Steve was the biggest white shark he’d ever seen at over twenty-five feet in length didn’t mean Tony wasn’t going to tease. Although he often wondered if the Rogers bloodline held throwback genes to megalodon because normally a great white barely broke twenty feet. Tony would probably have been jealous since he only topped off at fourteen feet but Steve was the nicest fish Tony had ever met.

Steve said firmly, “There‘s a situation developing. Director Fury asked me to call everyone in.”

“Fury? That explains it,” Tony said, wiggling his head around. He swam in circles around Steve, as he was always happy to be near the great white. “Where‘s Bruce?”

“He‘ll be here soon. He was further out than the rest of us,” Steve said, swimming gently in a large circle. They were waiting right at the steep drop that led to the deeper ocean, behind them were the edges of North Yellow Coral, a few straggling sea anemones in pinks and yellows and a large brain coral. A ten-foot long pacific whitetip shark swam out of the reef followed by a school cluster of much smaller four to five foot long whitetip reef sharks.

“Coulson!” Clint called out happily at the pacific whitetip. He swam over to meet his handler with Natasha on his back. She fluttered her fins in greetings.

“Agent Coulson,” Tony said warily. Agent Coulson had once sank his teeth into Tony’s left pectoral fin. Not enough to take it off, just enough to warn him to treat him with respect. Tony hadn’t forgotten and always kept a cautious eye on the smaller shark.

Coulson swam towards them, the junior agents following eagerly after him until he dismissed them with a flick of his tail. They swam a good distance away before settling down against alcoves in the rock next to the brain coral where they stopped swimming to wait. It was more than a little creepy to Tony when they did that. It just wasn’t normal to see sharks stop swimming when they weren‘t bottom feeders. He kept thinking they weren’t breathing.

“It is good to see you again, Son of Coul!” Thor bellowed his electronic signal came especially strong through the salt water.

They all winced as their electro-receptors buzzed.

Tony personally blamed Thor’s head shape for his enthusiastic personality and his tendency to blast them with too much electrical communication. Why his ancestors had gone for such an odd shape he’d yet to figure out, but then all hammerheads were weird. Thor’s bloodline was even odder than most. They’d adopted a dolphin of all things into their school. Loki, a bottlenose dolphin raised by hammerheads, was the craziest fish Tony had ever met. And yeah, yeah, he knew that a dolphin wasn’t a fish, but Loki kept insisting he was and Tony had given up arguing. He also made a point of swimming far, far away in case the crazy was contagious.

Bruce swam in slowly from the ocean deeps. He was huge, hulking whale shark who easily made even Steve look tiny.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tony said, waggling his pectoral fins in greeting. The other Jaw-vengers added their hellos.

“Hello everyone,” Bruce said, his electrical voice so resonant with power all their cartilage bones vibrated in sympathy.

“Ah good, you‘re all here.”

Tony jerked in surprise, as a large black manta ray with a twenty-foot wingspan dived down on them. 

“Sir,” Coulson said, the white tips of his fins flashed a respectful greeting. All his pilot fishes stiffened at attention.

Fury’s one working eye looked over them as he swam in a graceful loop. Tony had never asked what happened to the other eye. Life on the ocean was tough; every one of them had scars. The three pilot fish that followed in Fury’s wake broke and swam to join the junior agents waiting for Coulson. They were no doubt passing on Fury’s orders.

“We‘re moving out,” Fury growled. “The Jaw-vengers are needed. Hydra is making a move on a small reef, they‘ve asked for our help.”  
*-*-*-*

Clint didn’t really enjoy fighting Hydra, and not just because they were a bunch of fanatics. He simply hated hearing their motto. They just kept saying it over and over and over.

“Bite one of us apart and two more will rise!” The starfish squeaked as Clint bit it in half. He rolled his eyes, and swallowed both pieces. “Not if you‘re in my stomach you‘re not.”

Coulson’s white tipped tail fin wiggled in amusement. They watched Natasha flip through the water, using her smaller body to make tight turns which were completely impossible for either Clint or Coulson. As always seeing her aquabatics was impressive and humbling and a reminder to avoid ticking her off.

“Are you ever going to tell Thor that you‘re bloodline is named Coulson? And your name is actually Phil?” Clint asked idly, as he bit another starfish in half. He really like eating starfish so fighting Hydra wasn’t a hardship… as long as he didn’t have to hear them. This is why he preferred talking to his teammates or Coulson.

“No,” Coulson said wryly. He bit a starfish in half, the other half quickly devoured by his large cluster of pilot fish. “He‘s a hammerhead from the Asgard School. There‘s no point. And I think the electric shock Darcy gave him last week only fried more brain cells.”

“Have I told you lately how much I like that electric ray?” Clint said. “I think she‘d make a great junior agent. She‘s definitely electrify that group of small whitetip reef sharks that follow you around.”

“She‘d never leave Jane, she‘s very protective.”

Coulson sounded mournful so Clint rubbed his snout against Coulson’s gills, getting a light smack of a fin against the side of his head and unhappy glares from Coulson’s large collection of overly protective pilot fish.

“Focus, Agent Barton, we‘re in the middle of a fight.”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Clint gave him a playful flash of teeth and swam after Natasha who’d gotten ahead of him. “Hey, hold on, partner. Leave some for me!”  
*-*-*-*

Steve, Tony and Thor joined forces to devour the leader of the attacking Hydra forces, a Giant Pacific Octopus calling himself by the grandiose name of Commander Kraken. They fought hard, taking large bites out of Kraken’s large 30-foot long arms. They could only access the arms because the octopus was smart and hid the rest of his body in a large and deep cave. They were getting frustrated as the fight dragged on until Bruce got a tight grip on a tentacle with his wide mouth and pulled the octopus out. Not even a Giant Octopus’s sucker-reinforced grip could resist the unstoppable tug of a whale shark. 

The starfish Hydra soldiers squeaked in outrage and converged on Bruce, only to be stopped by the smooth coordinated attack of Natasha’s stingers and Clint’s jaws. Coulson directed the rest of the junior agents to cut down the Hydra soldiers. Fury barked orders to his set of agents, helping to round up and devour the starfish who tried to swim away when they realized they were losing.

Two hours after beginning the battle to protect a small reef the Jaw-vengers and SHIELD stopped the incursion. The reef was saved from falling under Hydra’s crushing multi-armed rule.

When the enemies filled their bellies or were little more than tiny scraps which their pilot fish nibbled on, the Jaw-vengers declared it a victory. Well, Thor declared it a victory, because he was a loud hammerhead while the rest of them just exchanged happy snout rubs and fin slaps and swam slowly back to N.Y.C, leaving Fury to talk to the locals.

“We were victorious in our great battle! The oceans are once again safe for sharks everywhere!” Thor shouted for all the sea to hear. “For we are the Jaw-vengers!”

They all winced as the electronic signals slammed into them with all the gentleness of, well, a hammer.

“Thor, buddy, pal…” Tony said slowly, as he swam close to the bigger shark. “Let‘s talk volume control.”

End

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I know aquabatics is not a real word but it should be!
> 
> Director Nick Fury: oceanic manta ray  
> Agent Phil Coulson: oceanic whitetip shark  
> Tony Stark: tiger shark  
> Bruce Banner: whale shark  
> Steve Rogers: great white shark  
> Clint Barton: bull shark  
> Natasha Romanov: whiptail stingray  
> Thor: hammerhead shark
> 
> Others:  
> Maria Hill: blacktip reef shark  
> Pepper Pots: lemon shark  
> Rhodey: Mako shark  
> Sitwell: grey reef shark  
> Loki: bottlenose dolphin  
> Jane Foster: blue shark  
> Darcy: electric ray  
> Junior SHIELD Agents: whitetip reef sharks
> 
> The Enemy:  
> Hydra: Starfish - Bit one of us in half and two more will grow in their place!  
> Commander Kraken - Giant Pacific Octopus
> 
> *hums Jaws theme*


End file.
